Did your sales fizzle during the past 90 days? Now is the time to add a Summer Sizzle Prospecting Blitz to grow your business!
Yes, we all want to enjoy the great weather as lockdowns are finally easing up. Summer is the time to be enjoying the beautiful weather, taking holidays, and spending time with family and friends. It can be easy to put prospecting on the back-burner when there are so many other (more enjoyable) things that you could be doing! That said, this Summer is NOT the time to procrastinate, with spring 2020 being impacted by Covid. We need all Salespeople on deck (no, not the boat kind) to turn this economy around and set up a stronger next 90 days to create a booming 2021.
We all know that prospecting can be hard, tedious, and sometimes even discouraging – making for the perfect “procrastination-storm”. I’ve been there! I learned a few years ago when planning a great trip in September, that putting prospecting into high gear in July & August when everyone else was taking holidays, allowed me to capture new clients and business before everyone else started their sales blitz in September. Luckily, I’ve been able to overcome my own objections and I have put together a list of top prospecting tips to help you get motivated, get busy, and get your pipeline sizzling as much as your grill this summer…
Here are 7 tips to heat up your Summer Prospecting Blitz:
1. Create your Hot List of at least 50-100 Customers and Prospects. Go through current customer lists, past customer lists from the last few years, webinar leads, tradeshow leads and your LinkedIn connections to create your Hot List.
2. Block your time in your calendar – the earlier the better. I find 7:45am – 8:55am is a great time to prospect, before customers get into 9am meetings. Take into consideration when your buyer will likely be available to answer your call or email live.
3. Identify your list of 10 prospects you’d like to contact the day prior, so that you’re prepared and excited to call your Hot List. Do your research on their website or their LinkedIn profile so you can create your compelling reason to meet with them. At least 10 calls each day, allows you to get your mojo going.
4. Apply the Double-Whammy method (a phone call followed by an email, text, or video) for even better results. It can improve your response rate by almost 50%.
5. Most customers read their emails on their mobile devices. The first 10 words of your email must be compelling to get a Buyer to click “open” and avoid the delete button
Most customers read their emails on their mobile devices. The first 10 words of your email must be compelling to get a Buyer to click open and avoid the delete button. Share on X6. Be creative with a video email to break through the clutter of a Buyer’s inbox. Video Emails have been shown to get 81% more responses than traditional emails. Platforms like BombBomb and Covideo both offer 14-day free trials, so you can test this new creative method and get comfortable in front of a camera.
Video Emails have been shown to get 81% more responses than traditional emails. Share on X7. Your messaging must be focused on how you can help your prospect improve their business, not on how you want to secure a meeting to sell services. Avoid selling too soon in your prospecting emails. Your objective is to create interest to secure a meeting, not the sale – yet!
Implementing these tips and committing to making those phone calls and emails is sure to make for a fruitful prospecting blitz – then you can grab a towel and hit the beach!
Lisa is driven by the mantra – Be Strategic. Be Pro-active. Be Brave. – and has been successfully training and coaching sales leaders and their teams to do the same for over 15 years. As the President of Teneo Results since 2003, she has trained thousands of sales professionals at more than 250 companies across North America. She transitions salespeople away from the standard “product & price” approach to having purposeful business conversations with their customers that drive results.